“Supergirl” Episode 506 Recap: Shadows Hold Their Breath

Previously on Supergirl, Lena Luthor lived a hundred lives. She went to boarding school with Andrea Rojas, she dated Jack Spheer, she developed nanotech, she started L Corp, she saved the world a few times, she kidnapped a Martian and she learned to incept people’s minds. Also Leviathan is running around, being a confusing mess of bad ideas, from what I can tell.

We open at the DEO, where Supergirl has brought William in to try to reach RipRoar, who hasn’t been saying much, seemingly lost inside the tech that’s too embedded in his biology for them to remove. Before they can get through to him, however, the DEO is invaded, and the shadow figure that killed the Spider Woman is zipping around trying to get to RipRoar, which Alex isn’t too pleased about.

The Shadow gets away without her target, and when she steps into the light, it’s revealed to be none other than Andrea Rojas herself, which genuinely surprised me in a way I didn’t think this show was capable of anymore.

Her DEO mission unsuccessful, Andrea decides to go to the smartest person in National City, who is just hanging out in her apartment looking stunning in a ponytail, hilariously asking Andrea, “What’s the DEO?” even though Andrea is also in top five smartest people in National City and totally knows she knows.

Andrea tells Lena that she knows who was behind the tidal wave and has been instructed to kill the agent, who is in DEO custody, but Lena is appalled Andrea would dare ask her to help kill someone. Andrea explains that she was INSTRUCTED to kill the agent, but he’s too important to her, so she’s trying to save him, but Supergirl is in her way. Andrea begs her, as a friend, and Lena snaps, “We’re not friends.”

But Andrea says they used to be.

We flash back to a young Andrea taking new kid Lena Luthor under her wing, teaching her how to underage drink and bonding over their love of the movie Titanic. Little Andrea shares her dream of traveling the world, and Little Lina shares her dream of… bending shadow to her will. Which is just so very Lena in so many ways. Mostly because it’s dramatic as fuck. But also because Lena has lived her whole life in the shadows that other people cast. Of course she wants to control them. So Lena tells Andrea about the story her mother used to tell her about an ancient magic medallion, and Andrea agrees to go on a quest with her to find it. Andrea says, “If you jump, I jump,” which is one of the lines used in what is often touted as one of the most romantic stories of all time, so, fine. Best friends. Sure.

A few years later, Lena and Andrea meet up because Andrea’s father is falling apart and Lena is losing her brother to his obsession with Superman.

Lena needs to find an element before Lex does, and also spoiler alert she DID already find it, and it also happens to be linked to the medallion, so off they trot to go find it. Together.

It’s in Costa Rica, where I also once traveled with a friend I later realized I was more into than I allowed myself to admit, so at least Lena and I have that going for us. They use Lena’s mother’s storybook as a guide, dressed like Bering & Wells in that one episode of Warehouse 13 (you know the one) until Andrea falls down a hole and Lena lunges to save her.

Down in the cavern she tumbled into, a messenger appears and offers Andrea an exchange; the power of the medallion for a favor. At first Andrea hesitates, insisting her friend Lena deserves this more, has been searching for it longer. But the messenger tells her that this is the only thing that will save her father. So Andrea takes the medallion, and is told to keep it on her person always, but never speak of it. And someday they will call upon her.

Lena uses a rope to climb down into the cavern after Andrea to save her, wrapping her in her arms when she sees that she’s safe. Lena sees the carving in the wall that matches the one from her story, and is so delighted that her mother’s story is coming true.

But then she realizes the medallion itself is gone; Andrea says maybe someone else already found it, and Lena is so, so sad.

Flash forward a few years, Andrea still has her medallion, her father didn’t die by suicide, Obsidian’s stock prices are up. Things are going well. Until Lena goes to a gala with Jack and sees Andrea with the medallion hanging from her perfect neck.

And once again, Lena is betrayed. For the first time by someone she wasn’t related to. Someone she trusted with her deepest hopes, someone who stole her light.

Lena decides to leave this life behind her and move to National City and redeem the Luthor name, leaving Jack behind because she can’t trust anyone anymore.

Andrea is sitting in a bar moping when a handsome man comes to flirt with her. It turns out to be Russell, someone she was supposed to have a meeting with but blew off because she was so sad about her ex gal pal. Since they’re not going to be business partners now, he asks her on a date.

Fast forward a bit more to three years ago, not too long after Lena moves to National City. Kara goes to see her in her office, having stopped a leak of L Corp’s private emails from getting to the CatCo presses. Lena appreciates it, but when Kara invites her to her and her sister’s weekly game night, Lena balks.

She says she just wants a business relationship, and will give the emails back if Kara thinks this is a promise of friendship. But Kara didn’t do this expecting anything in return, so she leaves Lena with the USB and with the open invitation to game night.

Andrea, having celebrated her six-month anniversary with Russell and feeling peak happiness, is visited by the consequences of her past, so it goes. The Leviathan woman comes and speaks as the messenger now, telling Andrea she needs to kill someone for them. Andrea is shocked; this isn’t exactly what she thought she was signing up for. But they can take Andrea’s father’s life as easily as they gave it, so she follows the woman’s instructions and taps the medallion three times, thus becoming The Shadow.

Her first kill is a governor, so she slips via shadow into his office and…SNAPS HIS NECK! I guess when Andrea does a thing she doesn’t do it halfway. Not that I think there’s a good way to like… ease into murder, but that seems like an aggressive start to me.

Later, at a restaurant, Kara catches Lena watching the Andrea news, and lets her know that the friendship offer still stands.

Kara catches Lena watching Andrea on the news; Kara lets her know that her friendship offer still stands; Alex cancels and Kara offers to leave but lena invites her to join her; maybe because she’s lonely, maybe because she decides she wants to start using friendship as a weapon the way she feels Andrea did, or maybe it’s because she can’t resist Kara’s charm and excellent points about letting people in. Maybe she thought she was ready to trust again and this sweet sort-of-reporter seemed like a safe bet. But either way, Lena gives in to Kara’s advances of kindness.

Back at her apartment, Russell says he’s worried about Andrea. She brushes him off, but then he finds her medallion, and it’s bloody for some reason? So either this was implying she killed an entirely different person, or she did a really bad job snapping that guy’s neck. Anyway, by the time Andrea finishes washing away her sins in the shower, Russell is taken away because he got too close. Andrea begs for his life, so instead of killing him, they turn him into a human weapon and use the biotech he was developing to give him the extra arms, and RipRoar is born.

Eight weeks ago, Lena saw news about Andrea and decided that she could be useful, which is when she called her up and offered her CatCo and the building space for Obsidian North. Cut to today, when Andrea feels horrible about everything she did, even though she did it to save her father.

Lena is horrified, and Andrea is sorry, but as Lena knows first-hand, apologies don’t always make things better. Andrea explains the medallion’s powers, her Shadow self, and that it cost her the love of her life and her best friend, and while I know in my logic brain that she means Russell and Lena, in that order, in my gay heart I decided to believe both things applied to Lena.

Andrea asks for Lena’s help, and even though she’s still upset, she wants everyone to stop killing and being killed so she agrees to join forces. When you jump, I jump, remember?

Back at the DEO, Alex and Kara are still trying to get information out of RipRoar.

But all he says is, “Leviathan.”

Lena uses her Supergirl pager to call her to her side, faking like she was injured to distract her.

Meanwhile, Andrea plants a Do No Harm beam in the DEO, and apparently everyone in the room was off to do harm, because they all just stop moving entirely. J’onn senses the Martianesque psychic shift and warns Alex, who puts in a psychic inhibitor. She goes out to find her agents all frozen in place, and realizes she can’t get through to Supergirl.

Agents free the spider tattoos, put Alex in a holding cell, and head for RipRoar. But then Alex shouts for Supergirl as loud as she can, a frequency Kara is in tune with, a fact that Lena didn’t take into consideration. So Supergirl flies off to save the day.

But the Shadow escapes with RipRoar. Lena manipulates Andrea into giving her the medallion, then she sends RipRoar and The Shadow away.

Team Supergirl is at a loss as to what the heck just happened and what to do next, but they know the name “Leviathan” now so at least that’s a place to start. Russell finally starts to snap out of the RipRoar haze and is actually talking to Andrea, but before he can say too much, he’s sniped down. The messenger tells her that even though she doesn’t have the medallion anymore, the powers came from her own shadows deep within her, so she’s still their Shadow agent.

Meanwhile, Lena is using her VR tech to watch her mother playing happily in the field with her younger self. The first person to love her, the first to leave her.

Hope tells her that the medallion doesn’t have powers anymore, but the markings spell out Leviathan, so Lena has Hope access all of Eve’s memories on the subject.

And sweet Rao I hope someone gives Lena a fucking hug soon. The poor girl is lost and needs a friend.